Diane Nelson, Live, On Camera – And How She Relates To Fans

The new president of DC Entertainment, Diane Nelson, has been giving a number of interviews, being careful it seems not to offend, give the party line, give generic rather than specific aims – and as a result give all us bloggers enough space to concoct our own conspiracy theories and keep the story ticking over.

Three years ago however, she appeared alongside Paul Levitz at the Futures Of Entertainment conference organised by MIT and the Convergence Cultures Consortium, where she spoke about fandom, and her own experiences working on Harry Potter and The Matrix. She speaks at length, in depth and with one very strong conclusion.

When it comes to fans, comic book or otherwise, and the relationships they have with corporate-owned properties – she gets it. She gets you. Hell, she gets me.

Which, I suppose, should come as no surprise but, to many people, it will be intensely gratifying.

She talked about how the company decided to tolerate sexually explicit Harry Potter fanfic as long as it was clearly labelled as being non-official, about working with Paul Levitz and the Batman and Superman characters and about respecting fans, of all types. She recognises how fans share a feeling of ownership on some level of a product, and how a company has to understand that, and how society is changing in how it consumes entertainment.